Somalia beefs up security ahead of first local elections in decades

Somalia

Mogadishu –  Somalia will deploy more than 10,000 security personnel in the capital, Mogadishu, ahead of next week’s local elections — the first direct polls in nearly 60 years — the security minister said on Sunday.

The east African country is struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and chaos, battling a bloody Islamist insurgency and frequent natural disasters.In April, the country launched voter registration for the first time in decades, a step towards universal suffrage and and end to the complex clan-based indirect voting system in place since 1969.The December 25 polls – which the opposition has boycotted, accusing the federal government of “unilateral election processes” – will see more than 1,600 candidates contest 390 local seats in the southeastern Banadir region.

Nearly 400,000 people are registered to vote in the elections, according to the country’s electoral body.

“We have managed to secure the city,” security minister Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail said in a statement.

Electoral Commission chairman Abdikarin Ahmed Hassan said all movement would be restricted on election day, with voters transported to polling stations by bus.

“The whole country will be shut down,” Hassan said. “It is a great moment for the Somali people to see elections for the first nearly sixty years.”

Somalia’s system of direct voting was abolished after Siad Barre took power in 1969. Since the fall of his authoritarian government in 1991, the country’s political system has revolved around a clan-based structure.

Thursday’s elections, using the one-person, one-vote model, were postponed three times this year.

The country is expected to hold its presidential election in 2026, as President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term comes to an end.

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Source: AFP

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